Alternative Twist: Birds of a Feather Boa
by The Big Blue
Summary: This is an alternative twist to Will and Jack’s storyline in “Birds of a Feather Boa” Series 8, episode 7
1. Chapter 1

**Alternative Twist: Birds of a Feather Boa**

Summary: This is an alternative twist to Will and Jack's storyline in "Birds of a Feather Boa" (Series 8, episode 7)

I'll be including actual dialogue from the episode, so it's not all my own work

xxxxx

Will was sitting on his sofa reading the newspaper. It was a Saturday and he was relaxing after a demanding week at work. Grace was sat at the table eating her second breakfast.

"Grace do you ever have time to actually work, what with the amount of food you consume everyday?" Will asked her lazily, not looking up from his newspaper.

"Haydatsunfaimmepressanconfooteetin" Grace managed to reply, albeit with a mouth full of food. Will burst out laughing and looked over to see Grace shooting daggers at him. Grace tried again.

"I said, that's unfair, I'm depressed and comfort eating"

"Yeah right" Will scoffed and went back to reading his newspaper. Grace went back to eating.

If they thought they were in for a quiet Saturday, they should think again. Jack practically bounced into the apartment and sat himself down on the sofa next to Will.

"Did you hear the news? I'm moving into a bigger place" Jack screeched to show the level of his excitement.

"Oh my God, when did you decide that?" Will asked, putting his newspaper down to give Jack his full attention.

"Only this morning. The ratings for Jack Talk came in and they're growing so I figured that I need to be in a place which feels more successful"

"Welgodfoyou" Grace called out, again with food in her mouth. She swallowed quickly noticing the confused expression on Jack's face. "Good for you Jack, I'll decorate it for free".

"Oh no, that's ok G, you don't have to do that"

"I want to" Grace said smiling.

"Yeah I heard, anyway" Jack swapped his attention from Grace to Will. "I've managed to save up five thousand"

"I'm so proud of you Jack, you're growing up" Will told his friend affectionately. "You know what? It's Saturday. Let's get the Village Voice and I'll help you start looking. It'll be fun, and we can go to the zoo and see the penguins. There was an article in the paper saying two of them are gay"

"I can look at apartments myself, are you sure you wouldn't rather spend you weekend doing something else?" Jack asked standing up from the sofa.

"Don't be silly Jack, it'll be fun"

xxxxx

Will and Jack were wandering through central park zoo. Jack was scanning the classifieds. He closed the paper and sighed.

"I haven't liked any apartment we've seen so far"

"Don't worry, we'll find something" Will reassured him. "There's the penguins" Will announced walking over to the penguin enclosure, Jack right behind him.

"Penguins are so cute, which ones do you think are gay?" Jack asked Will. They both scanned the enclosure for a few moments.

"I'd say the two in the corner, whispering and pointing at the other penguins" Will said gesturing to the penguins in question.

"Hi, you guys are gay right?" a woman asked Will and Jack. They both turned around to answer her.

"We're here, we're queer" Jack said laughing.

"Good, will you sign my petition? The zoo wants to separate the gay penguins. They want to send Doug to the Bronx Zoo to mate with a female penguin" the woman informed them.

"That's outrageous" Jack spat shaking his head. "Gays can't get married, but women in the Bronx can have penguins imported just for sex?"

"Just the thought of those two guys being split up, that really gets to me" Will said looking at the two penguins again.

"Yeah, me too" Jack agreed. Jacks phone began ringing and he walked off to answer it.

"You should come to the rally tomorrow. Me and my lesbian friends are going to be there" the woman said to Will.

"That sounds like a great idea. Oh look, that penguin is cleaning his nest and stacking his fish so neatly" Will said fondly, admiring the gay penguins.

"That's Randall. He's a real fussbudget. And the other one, the goofy one, that's Doug. He always waddles into Randall's nest unannounced"

Will laughed. The two of them stood watching the penguins.

"Oh look, Doug just stole his fish" Will said to the woman, poitining.

"And now Randall will probably act annoyed and sulk. Even though he loves it. I'm worried about him though, if Doug gets sent away, Randall will fall apart"

"Really? Randall looks pretty together. You know, except for the lollipop stuck to his back"

"He'd be devastated when he's all alone. He just doesn't know it yet"

"Huh" was all Will could think of to say.

"My girlfriend did this study on gay penguins that were separated. The one that stayed behind, he was a mess" the woman informed Will.

"What happened to him?" Will asked her.

"He gained a ton of weight, and all of his feathers fell out" the woman sad sadly.

Will took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair.

"Sorry about that. Shall we go and look at more apartments?" Jack had returned from his phone call.

"Sure, let's go" Will said despondently.

xxxxx

Will was at the gym on the running machine. Grace had been telling him for months to get back to the gym. With Grace living in Brooklyn with Leo and children Lila and Ben, she wasn't able to nag him as much as before. Grace had told Will that not only would the weight loss make him healthier but it would probably help to beat his depression. He had to admit the weight had crept up on him. He was almost a stone overweight. He'd also started to go bald, but he just put it down to the fact that he was nearly 46 and single and had nothing to motivate him into taking care of himself.

Will only managed thirty minutes before tiring out. He walked towards the changing rooms and stopped dead. Jack was walking his way. He momentarily wandered if he should hide but before he could even contemplate the idea Jack had seen him and was walking over.

"Will, hi" Jack said, and the two of them hugged.

"You look good" Will said to Jack. He did look good.

"You, um, you look good as well" Jack told Will. Will held back the desire to laugh.

"So, how are you?" Will asked Jack. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Good, you?" Jack replied in a bored tone.

"I'm fine"

Will and Jack stood in silence for a few seconds before jack made some excuse about a yoga lesson starting and walked off, leaving Will feeling even more depressed than ever.

Will went to carry on walking towards the changing room but found he couldn't move his feet. A ringing was filling his ear, getting louder and louder. Everything went dark.

Will opened his eyes to find himself staring at his bedroom ceiling. It took him a few moments before realising his alarm was ringing and reached over to turn it off. He sat up in his bed and put his head into his hands.

"Oh my God" Will said quietly to himself.

xxxxx

Will was in his apartment standing at the dining table, which was covered with card, felt tips, glitter and glue. Jack walked in and walked over to see what Will was doing.

"There you are" Will said to Jack. "Help me make some signs for the rally today. Take a marker and start drawing penguins"

"Sorry, I can't. I've got a lease to sign. I found an apartment" Jack told his friend jumping for joy.

"Oh" Will replied.

"Oh? Will, I've found an apartment. It's all the way down in Tribeca. New kitchen, two bedrooms, hardwood floors and-"

"Well that's great" Will interrupted sounding annoyed. "You've got a new apartment, meanwhile Randall and Doug's love igloo is melting beneath their webbed feet"

"I kinda thought you would congratulate me Will. You were so excited yesterday when we went to look at apartments" Jack said to Will, completely confused by his friends lack of support.

"Well, I'm sorry. It's just a little trivial compared to the civil rights issue coming to a boil at the penguin house. Some people may not think so, but these two little guys a family" Will answered angrily.

"God Will, relax. It's not that big a deal. They're just fish" Jack said trying to calm his friend down.

"Not that big a deal? Jack, don't you understand? Their whole relationship is going to change. They're not going to be able to swim together all the time or share some fish or go for a waddle. I mean, sure they'll want to get together, but something is always going to come up. And then one day, they'll run into each other at the gym, and it'll be all weird and awkward and Randall will be like "Oh, you look good" and Doug'll be like, "Yeah, is that a feather toupee?". They used to be best friends and now they don't even know each other"

Will picks up his completed signs and heads for the door.

"Will, would you wait a minute?" Jack begged.

"No, I've got to go" Will replied, adding unconvincingly "congratulations on your new apartment"

Will left leaving Jack reeling over his speech. He sat down at the dining room and began designing his own sign for the rally.

xxxxx

Please, please review I will be forever grateful. There'll probably be just 1 more chapter (unless I get completely carried away!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Alternative Twist: Birds of a Feather Boa**

Summary: This is an alternative twist to Will and Jack's storyline in "Birds of a Feather Boa" (Series 8, episode 7)

I'll be including actual dialogue from the episode, so it's not all my own work

xxxxx

Grace enters her and Will's apartment after a few hours of retail therapy. She practically collides with Jack who was in the process of leaving the apartment.

"Jesus G, you scared the shit out of me" Jack exclaimed picking up his penguin sign he'd dropped.

"What's this?" Grace asked looking at Jacks sign.

"Oh it's a sign for the penguin rally. Did Will not mention it?"

"Probably, I wasn't really listening. Actually he's been acting a bit funny since yesterday"

"He doesn't want me to move" Jack says sadly. "He thinks we'll stop hanging out and end up like strangers"

Grace laughed. Jack would have laughed too but he was worried about Will. Why had his friend gone so cold on him when it was his idea to go out and look at apartments yesterday?

"So how has he been acting funny?" Jack asked Grace.

"Well he's not very talkative, went to bed early, ate too many carbs, that sort of thing. I thought he'd found a grey hair or something, I didn't like to ask"

"Maybe I should put off moving" Jack suggested.

"You can't live your life to please Will. Do what you thinks right for you Jack" Grace told her friend before heading off to her bedroom.

xxxxx

Half an hour later had Jack in the midst of the penguin rally searching for Will. He was surprised by the amount of people that had turned up for it. After all they were only penguins. He was almost thinking about giving up and going home to wait for Will when he spotted his friend in front of him. He ran to catch up with him.

"Hey Will, look what I made" Jack said out of breath and holding his sign up. Will glanced briefly at Jacks sign and went back to looking straight ahead of him.

"Although it's not as good as yours" Jack said laughing. "How did you manage to draw those penguins so accurately?"

"Shouldn't you be signing a lease?" Will asked bitterly.

Jack had to force himself not to scream at Will. What was his problem? But Jack didn't want to make things any worse than they already were. He decided to keep things light.

"I'm doing it tomorrow" Jack replied. "Hey come on Will, lighten up. Up until a few years ago I lived with my mom and we still saw each other all the time, nothing will change between us"

Will ignored Jack and didn't respond to him. For several minutes they just walked side-by-side holding their penguin signs, neither of them actually thinking about anything penguin related. Eventually Jack tried again to make peace with his friend.

"Will, let's ditch this rally and go grab a coffee, we can talk about things" he pleaded.

"Just leave me alone Jack. You never wanted to come to this thing today. We may as well get used to not being in each other's company"

Will walked off throwing his sign to the floor, leaving Jack seething but also wondering what the hell he can do or say to Will to make things better. He contemplated running after him but figured Will needed time to think and maybe come to the conclusion himself that he was being completely unreasonable.

xxxxx

After grabbing something to eat Jack headed back to Will and Grace's apartment hoping to find Will there. But only Grace was there, sitting at the table eating a chocolate muffin out of a box of 4 and reading a magazine.

"Where's Will?" Jack asked Grace sitting down and reaching over to get one of the muffins for himself.

"He's gone to find out the situation on the penguins" Grace replied.

"How did he seem, is he ok?" Jack asked taking a large bite of the muffin.

"Haven't seen him I just found a note on the side when I got out of the bath"

"Oh right" Jack sighed.

xxxxx

Jack was in central park zoo making his way to the penguin pool. As he neared, sure enough, there was Will.

"Hey Will, I'm glad I found you" Jack said softly to Will, putting an arm around him. Will looked at Jack and smiled.

"I'm sorry Jack. I've been a selfish friend" Will said looking down at the floor.

"No you haven't" Jack told Will removing his arm. "You're my best friend and I should take your feelings into account. After all you've bailed me out on several occasions when I've been short of cash"

"I'll really miss you Jack, but I'm excited for you and your new place. When do you move in?"

"I'm not moving. All the money I had is gone. I spent it on some stupid impulse buy"

Before Will could reply the woman from yesterday was approaching them again.

"Hey, guys, guess what? An anonymous donor just gave the Bronx Zoo enough money to buy its own penguin. Doug and Randall don't have to be separated. But don't say anything. I want to tell them myself" and off she went.

Jack began shuffling on his feet and Will grabbed his arm to still him.

"A anonymous donor? I can't believe you did that. I'm so impressed. I never even though about donating money. How did you know how much to give?"

"I'm not an idiot, Will. I think I know how much a penguin costs" Jack replied looking sheepish.

"But that was your apartment money. I can't believe you did that for me"

Will pulled Jack into a hug. They pulled apart and turned to look at Doug and Randall.

"Look at them. They really are cute aren't they?" Will said smiling.

"Yeah" Jack agreed.

xxxxx

Will was at the gym. He'd just finished his work out and was having a shower. After drying himself off for a few minutes he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out into the changing room.

He stopped dead. Jack had just walked into the changing room and was heading his way. Will contemplated hiding but Jack spotted him and came over.

"Will, hi" Jack said enthusiastically hugging his friend.

"You look good" Will said to Jack as they broke apart. He did look good.

"You look good as well" Jack told Will.

"Whatever Jack, you can say it. I look fat bald and ugly"

Jack grabbed hold of Will's arm catching Will off guard.

"Will, you look great. Seriously" Jack said, looking at Will rather strangely.

Before Will could ask Jack what he was staring at Jack had yanked the towel away from Will's waist and was backing him into the shower he had just came out of.

Jack captured Will's lips in a passionate kiss. Will felt paralysed to the spot. Lust and desire were coursing through his body and as Jack removed his own clothing Will almost gasped at seeing Jack's very impressive package. Will had always secretly wanted a little glimpse, not that he'd ever told anybody that.

Jack pushed his body up against Will's and Will tried desperately to move his arms and explore every inch of Jack's body. A ringing began filling his ear, getting louder and louder. Everything went dark.

Will opened his eyes to find himself staring at his bedroom ceiling again panting as though he'd just run ten blocks.

"Shit" he said out loud.

xxxxx

Please, please review I will be forever grateful and thank you for all those who have already reviewed (I See London / Nighthawk-Moonshadow / Hayden-B / red-wax). I've written this story from a real episode, and chapter 1 follows it pretty much all the way so not sure about the out of character remark hee hee! On well! (This will now be 3 chapters. I couldn't squeeze what I wanted to write into 2, hope that's ok!)


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